


Hiraeth

by archangelwithashotgun



Series: Tumblr Prompts [33]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Comforting Sam, Crying Gabriel, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hugs, Hurt Gabriel, M/M, Nostalgia, One Word Prompts, Pre-Slash, Sabriel - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt, hiraeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 18:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6818515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archangelwithashotgun/pseuds/archangelwithashotgun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiraeth (Welsh): A homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.</p>
<p>Gabriel mourns for Heaven, and Sam is there to hold him together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hiraeth

“Gabriel?”

Gabriel perked up a little at the whispered murmur of his name coming from behind him. Shifting his arm a bit from where it rested on the windowsill, Gabriel’s lips stretched into a grim smile before he turned his head to look over his shoulder.

“Should have known you’d look for me,” Gabriel answered, loosely folding his arms over his chest.

Sam shrugged, stepping into the room with trudging footsteps. “You disappeared after dinner.”

Gabriel tsked, tilting his head as he plastered a smile of faux adoration onto his face. “Aww, Sammy. Worried about me?” he asked, batting his lashes for good measure.

Surprisingly, Sam didn’t rise to the bait. Nor did he respond in a way Gabriel expected. “And if I am?” he countered, almost challengingly.

Gabriel didn’t know how to answer that. He stared at Sam, his happy mask frozen on his face as he allowed the sincerity of Sam’s reply to sink in. Once it did, anger began to brew in his gut, and he wiped his expression of emotion, returning his gaze to the sky outside. He was quiet for a long moment, his jaw gradually tightening.

“I don’t need or want you to worry about me, Samsquatch,” he muttered, a bitter tint to his words.

“You’d be hard-pressed to get me to stop me from doing it anyway,” came the joking tone.

Gabriel scowled but didn’t comment.

He heard Sam sigh, and the footsteps came closer. “Gabriel, seriously… Are you alright?”

“I miss Heaven.”

Both archangel and hunter were shocked at how easy the words flowed out. Gabriel shut his eyes, sighing in disdain toward himself.

“I just…” he breathed, slowly reopening his eyes, staring determinedly at the flickering stars in the vast indigo canvas. “I miss Heaven, okay?”

Sam was silent for a long while, and Gabriel could feel the muscles in his back and shoulders grow tense with discomfort. But at long last, the footsteps continued, the heavy and continuous thud of boots resonating through the room, and Sam appeared in his peripheral vision. The hunter leaned against the opposite frame of the window, watching Gabriel.

“Tell me about it?” he asked tentatively.

Gabriel stubbornly kept his eyes away from Sam, staring intensely at the sky, but he could feel his resolve wavering. At this point, it really couldn’t do any harm to tell Sam; the younger Winchester was the least likely to ridicule him for sentimentality, and maybe Sam could even understand to a certain extent. Also, he was practically bursting with the need to tell someone.

“I miss… my brothers,” Gabriel began, almost uncertainly.

Beside him, Sam paused to absorb the information, and then the man nodded. Encouraged, Gabriel took in a deep breath and continued.

“You might have thought of them as complete douchenozzles, and honestly, you wouldn’t be wrong. But they weren’t always like that. I was the youngest of the First Four; they were my older brothers, and they were to me what Dean is to you. They loved me, protected me, nurtured me, cared for me, and I loved them just as much… I still do.”

Gabriel paused, gathering his thoughts. Sam remained silent.

“I miss… I miss Michael’s warmth. I miss the times before the War, when he was still the top warrior in Daddy’s army, but he would still _laugh_ and _play_. He was the one that taught me how to fly, y’know? He would lie down on his back and – _heh_ – he’d throw me up in the air, catching me whenever I wasn’t able to flap my wings early enough. And even after I got it, he’d still throw me up towards the sky, and he’d chase me around the clouds. I miss his encouragement and his – his wisdom and his… I miss when he used to _care_.

“I miss Raphael’s compassion. And you would have never guessed it from your first encounter with him, but he used to be the _kindest_ , most _gentle_ being you ever had the pleasure of having in your life. And if I ever got hurt, he was always the one to metaphorically kiss away my scars. He… He did this thing where he wrapped his wings around me, and his wings were this amazing color of all the different greens of the universe, held in a pair of crystallized appendages that he’d wrap around me, and he always smelled like the freshest pine forest. Because he knew that when he did that, it always helped in calming me down. Even now, whenever I’m upset or pissed or generally just having a bad day, I’ll ventured out and find a pine forest and just lay in the middle of it for hours… So far, no forest ever came close to his comfort though.

“And Lucifer…”

Here, Gabriel’s voice broke.

“Lucifer, he—“

Gabriel was stopped by a strangled sob this time, and to his horror hot tears rushed to the forefront of his eyes and spilled over, trickling down his cheeks with a reverence. He sucked in a gasp, slowly raising a palm to his mouth as a louder sob shook him.

He saw Sam push himself off the window frame, and he had wrapped his arms around the archangel’s quivering shoulders before Gabriel could flinch away from the contact. Once Sam’s warm embrace descended on him, however, Gabriel could do little to stop himself from turning to press his face into Sam’s chest, hands clutching the front of Sam’s shirt desperately.

“I miss Heaven,” Gabriel murmured thickly, sniffing wetly as more tears fell from his eyes. “I miss _home_.”

“I know you do,” Sam whispered, running a comforting hand up and down Gabriel’s back, hugging Gabriel close. “But Gabriel… you can have a home here with _us_.”

Gabriel opened his stinging eyes at that, still crying silently but listening.

“It might not be what you had up in Heaven with your brothers,” Sam continued, a nervous edge to his voice, yet his didn’t relent in his comforting, continuous stroke of Gabriel’s back. “But maybe… You might like it here. With me, and with Cas, and, hell, you might even grow on Dean. Just… you’re more than welcome to, and you can have a home with us. If you want to.”

Gabriel’s fingers flexed and relaxed on Sam’s shirt, blinking back tears at this offer. He released a long, shaky sigh, his throat sore and pulsing. The trembles ransacking his body intensified, and he shivered as he sunk deeper into Sam’s arms.

“Yeah,” he whispered hoarsely, now wrecked by an entirely different emotion. He sniffled and pushed his face deeper into Sam’s chest. He could feel one of Sam’s hands travel up to run his fingers through Gabriel’s hair, and Gabriel swallowed roughly at the distant familiarity of the action, feeling a fresh sob building in his chest. “I think I’d like that.”


End file.
